"The Origin of the Book of Mormon, Reëxamined in Its Relation to Spalding's 'MS. Found.'' By A. L. Schroeder. Paper, 56 pp. lished by the author. Pub "Some Facts Concerning Polygamy." By A. L. Schroeder. Paper, 24 pp. Published by the author. "Our Baby's Journal. No. 1. Hope." By M. R. and F. M. Kerr. Cloth, 175 pp. Price, $1. Edgewood Press: New Haven, Ct. "Tolstoy and His Problems." By Aylmer Maude. Cloth, 332 pp. Price, $2. London: Grant Richards. New York: A. Wessels Co. "A Bibliographical Contribution to the Study of John Ruskin." Compiled by M. Ethel Jameson. Cloth, 154 pp. Price, $1.50. Cambridge: The Riverside Press. TH HE tragedy at Buffalo, by which the whole civilized world was shocked to its foundations, has dominated the periodical literature of the United States and elsewhere during the last two months. There is seemingly very little agreement, however, as to the cause and significance of anarchy, while suggestions concerning its eradication, though abundant, have been futile and irrational when not positively worse than the malady itself. It is with great satisfaction, therefore, that we present in this issue of THE ARENA two papers that throw some really helpful light on the world problem. Dr. Felix L. Oswald, A.M., the distinguished essayist and author of "Physical Education, or the Health Laws of Nature," and many other standard works, traces the evolution of the anarchic spirit and shows that it is a symptom of our abnormal racial growth rather than a disease of the social body. As such it should be treated; and the true method of procedure is clearly pointed out by our other contributor, Mrs. Evelyn Harvey Roberts, the wife of a Congregational clergyman, whose analysis suggests the fundamental defect in conventional economic teachings, by which ignorance and avarice are fostered, and explains why the prayers of a whole nation were powerless to avert a fatal consummation of the Buffalo assassin's deed. The Rev. James Hoffman Batten's article on "The Failure of Freedom" is not without significance in the present crisis. It sets forth the appalling results that may be apprehended from the cultivation of selfishness in the higher walks of life— among those who exercise power and authority over the masses of men and makes an eloquent appeal for simple economic justice and political honesty that is reassuring in a minister of the gospel. In this season of municipal elections, Mr. Joseph Dana Miller's paper on "The Futilities of Reformers" reveals some of the most potent obstacles to true progress and analyzes the causes of the frequent failures among reform movements. Mr. Miller knows whereof he speaks, as he has been prominently identified with the Single Tax propaganda and many of the attempts to "purify" our city government in recent years. The system of taxation promulgated by the late Henry George and his numerous followers has doubtless never had a more convincing argument in its favor, presented in so few pages, than the essay in this month's ARENA on "The Ethics of the Land Question." The writer is a New England scholar and thinker, at present engaged in other lines of advanced thought, whose profound study of social economics has led him to conclusions that should enlist the attention of every legislator as well as of all minds devoted to the amelioration of life's conditions for the majority of men. The devotees of the Single Tax could scarcely possess a more effective campaign document than this essay, for it presents a side of the question too often ignored-its ethical basis. The current contribution to our series of papers on advanced religious topics is from the able pen of the author of "Where Dwells the Soul Serene." In "The Office of the Preacher," Mr. Davis makes many excellent suggestions concerning the lines of thought and study best calculated to advance the spiritual interests of the race, and incidentally to promote the progress of the Church as an educational and reformatory institution. It were well if every clergyman in the land, regardless of creed, would read and heed his words. The next article in this series, to appear in December, will be a discussion of "Evolution and Theology," by Walter Spence. Justice Clark's brief remarks concerning the utility of a governmental telegraph and telephone system, in this issue, will be followed in January by an extended "Conversation" with Prof. Frank Parsons on the same subject. This author's contribution to the present number completes his superb series on "Great Movements of the Nineteenth Century.' Frances A. Kellor concludes her study of "The Criminal Negro" also in the current ARENA. The investigation of Southern conditions pertaining to the black race on which these eight articles have been based was most thorough and comprehensive. The author with an assistant visited eight States and thirty-eight penal institutions; also schools and colleges and the slum sections of cities. Every facility was placed at their disposal by Governors and other State officials as well as by the superintendents of convict farms, prisons, jails, workhouses, reformatories, mines, and camps. Miss Kellor's articles, therefore, may be regarded as accurate and authentic. Will Allen Dromgoole's introduction of our new Fiction feat so charmingly pathetic that its brevity is to be regretted; yet it is an admirable character sketch of the antebellum negro -a type that is fast disappearing from the scenes in which he has played so tragic a part. Anna Vernon Dorsey, of Washington, D. C., will contribute a delightful Christmas story to our December issue. We are pleased to announce that the opening article of our next number will be from the pen of the Hon. W. A. Northcott, Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois-an elaboration of his Labor Day address at Springfield on "The Rights of Men." Among other contributions of timely interest and reformatory import, we shall publish in December a valuable paper on a recent bureaucratic oppression on the part of the postal authorities. The writer is Gen. C. H. Howard, president of the National Publishers' Bureau, of Chicago. J. E. M. "We do not take possession of our ideas, but are possessed by them. They master us and force us into the arena, -HEINE. THE ARENA VOL. XXVI. DECEMBER, 1901. No. 6. FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY, SANTA ROSA, CAL. THE RIGHTS OF MEN.* "Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, GOD men! We are met at the threshold of the twentieth century with the greatest question of all the ages-the just coöperation of capital and labor. And over its gateway is the word "organization." The key-note of the hour is combination and cooperation. Shall this powerful force of organization be for the benefit of the few or for the benefit of all? In liberty-loving Switzerland, whose snow-capped Alps echo to the huntsman's horn, is the great glacier. Long years in forming, it moves so slowly that only the nice ear of the man of snow and ice can catch the music of its motion. But in the fulness of time it becomes the swiftly-moving avalanche, in its terrible force sweeping all before it. The evolution of the rights of men through all the ages has been the slow motion of the glacier, but it comes upon the twentieth century with the swiftness of the avalanche. Two thousand years ago a Flower Divine closed its petals upon the Cross at Calvary, and to-day it bears its ripened * Address delivered by Lieutenant-Governor W. A. Northcott, at Springfield, Illinois, on Labor Day, September 2, 1901. fruit in the spirit of brotherly love that is the basis of all that is best in our present civilization. And, above the avalanche of human rights that has come to bless our times, we look beyond the centuries to the Cross borne by the lowly Nazarene on the far-off hills of Galilee. The strength of a nation is not in its armies and navies, but in the number of happy homes throughout the land. The strength of a community is in the distribution of political power, religious liberty, intelligence, and wealth among the masses of the people. Not that one man is stronger than his fellows, but that the many are strong. Not that one man is intellectually great, but that the many are intelligent. Not in the universities whose spires kiss the sky, but in the publicschool houses on the hills and in the valleys. Not in great wealth concentrated in commercial centers, but in the fact that our laborers have "three square meals" a day and are able to clothe and feed their little children and send them to school. Not that a king is powerful, but that political power is distributed among and rests with the people. These are the conditions that make a nation truly great. Slowly came the evolution of religious freedom down the ages. In the sixteenth century Martin Luther challenged religious intolerance and the Reformation began. Contemporaneously, the licentious arrogance of Henry VIII. of England opposed with all the strength of his kingdom the power of papal despotism, and, once broken, it slowly gave way to religious freedom. The builders of our Republic, remembering the flight of the Pilgrim Fathers from the religious oppression of the Old World, in making the Constitution, divorced Church and State and gave to our people the greatest religious liberty the world has ever known. How inspiring has been the march of political equality! Nearly a thousand years ago the Magna Charta was wrested from King John by his haughty barons on the plains of Runnymede, and to the English people was given the right of trial by jury. In the seventeenth century Oliver Cromwell gave the first challenge to the "divine right of kings." The teach |